Nasuada's Chronicles
by avid-amethyst
Summary: As Brisingr ends, Eragon gazes out into the sunset from atop a hill. Little does he know that Nasuada is gazing just as intently at him. // Pls R&R! My first fic. Nasuada/Eragon but also general adventure. *I obviously don't own Eragon*
1. After Feinster

Nasuada grimaced. The scene she looked upon was at once beautiful and painful to behold. It had only been an hour since the Varden had captured Feinster, and she had received word that the elves had captured Gil'leed, but the joy that she knew she should be feeling at winning two tedious battles was severely dampened by two things. First, learning of the existence of another free dragon and his rider only to be informed of their deaths felt like a cruel twist of fate. It both angered and deeply saddened her that she should be given so much hope for the future of her race, only to have it snatched away again. But the pain she felt at losing a dragon and his rider whom she had never met was minimal compared to the pain that the very scene she looked upon was causing her. She was standing right outside her official tent, far from the carnage of the battle itself, looking upon a seemingly unremarkable hill.

Despite all the events and revelations of the day, it was that hill that consumed almost all of Nasuada's attention; not the hill exactly, but the young man on the hill. Eragon stood at the very crest with his chest out and shoulders back as if he was trying to inhale the sunset, looking like the very image of calmness. His exhaustion and grief were both evident however as he had to lean against Saphira to remain upright. Saphira did not seem to be in much better shape, as Nasuada noticed her eyelids slowly closing over her battle weary eyes. Nevertheless, she sparkled a brilliant turquoise in the light of the setting sun.

While Saphira's radiance was certainly not lost on Nasuada, it seemed to dull in comparison to Eragon's very presence. As ruler of the Varden she knew she had to stop thinking such childish and dangerous thoughts, but she couldn't help but allow herself a few minutes more of hopeless, aimless dreaming. She wondered what Eragon was thinking of at that very moment, and wished she had the ability like elves and magicians to enter his mind.

At that moment she glimpsed Arya from the corner of her vision, and colored a deep maroon, thinking that she had seen her staring. When Arya continued walking in another direction, her relief soon gave way to jealousy.

"Lucky Arya," she thought, "she can see what Eragon is thinking whenever she pleases, and moreover, she has Eragon's love whenever she choses to accept it."

Nasuada brooded in a most un-queenly fashion, until she noticed Trianna approaching her. Lucky for Nasuada, she had stopped staring at Eragon as she brooded, and avoiding having her embarrassing secret discovered by the sorceress.

"I must act more queen-like from now on," she thought to herself, "and that means no staring, no brooding, and for that matter no thinking about Eragon Shadeslayer."

By the time she had finished condoning herself; Trianna had approached her, offered a succinct greeting and requested to speak to her in private. Eager to take her mind off of Eragon, Nasuada hurriedly returned her greeting and led the sorceress into her official meeting tent.

"Before you begin Trianna, I must offer my sincerest thanks for your part in the battle today, without you, I fear we may have never broken the stronghold at the back of the city without having to engage Eragon or Arya, who had their own important affairs to attend to."

Trianna bowed slightly accepting Nasuada's thanks, but instead of offering congratulations and thanks in return as was customary, Trianna instead began to speak.

"Nasuada, it is for that very reason I have come. I am concerned for Eragon."

Nasuada sighed quietly, and sat down in preparation of hearing about the one person she would most like to forget.


	2. Nasuada's Decision

"Is Saphira quite alright? And who is Oromis?"

Nasuada practically jumped off of her seat.

"How do you know about Oromis, Trianna? And Saphira is standing right outside, of course she is okay!" Her heart was racing. Had Trianna been eavesdropping while Eragon had explained his visions to her and Arya; was she not to be trusted?

Surprised at the hostility of Nasuada's tone, Trianna didn't waste any time in explaining the recent events, "We, meaning most of the spell casters, picked up a very loud disturbance in someone's consciousness. I could tell it was Eragon's mind we were touching, but I'm guessing it wasn't Eragon's thoughts we were seeing. What's going on Nasuada?"

Understanding softened Nasuada's features. Obviously when Glaedr had been at the height of his distress, Eragon's consciousness had projected itself onto others with the ability to touch it.

"Trianna, you have my permission to relay the information I am about to give you to anyone who inquires about it, on the one condition that you do not ask me about this again, or go searching for further explanations."

Trianna nodded, and waited silently for Nasuada to explain everything. Instead, Nasuada said only as much as Trianna and the rest of the Varden needed to know, leaving out the Edulnari at all costs. Trianna's sharp mind noticed the gaps in her explanation, but didn't bother to point them out; Nasuada obviously had her reasons for not explaining why Eragon was experiencing the emotions of a faraway dragon.

At the end of her meager explanation, Nasuada paused as if she was going to say more, but stopped herself. Instead it was Trianna who spoke next, thanking the queen for her explanation. Again it seemed that Nasuada wanted to say something more, but instead she just said, "we begin our march to Belatona in two days, we must prepare."

When Trianna left the tent, Nasuada sighed for what seemed like the tenth time that day. In a matter of hours the entire Varden would know about Glaedr and Oromis' existence and untimely death. Although she knew it was inevitable, Nasuada wished the Varden could have had just one day to celebrate their victory in Feinster, before having their spirits crushed yet again.

But that was not the only thing tugging on her nerves, it bothered Nasuada that a significant portion of the Varden had known about Glaedr and Oromis before she had. It was bad enough that her flesh wounds didn't allow her to fight, but now she found her lack of mind touching abilities leaving her knowing less than everyone else. Maybe there wasn't anything she could do about her fighting for now, but Nasuada decided that it was about time she learned how to touch other people's consciousness. All that remained to be decided was who was to be her teacher. She had considered asking Trianna, but she was not sure she trusted her enough to let her into close contact with her mind. No, the only two people she trusted enough were Arya and Eragon.

As she was thinking, Arya walked into the tent. She sat down beside Nasuada, looking just as exhausted as Nasuada felt.

"So you told the Varden about Glaedr."

Nasuada raised an eyebrow. This behavior was fairly uncharacteristic of Arya. Although Nasuada considered her a trusted companion; the two of them had never exactly had candid chats late in the evening. She didn't feel like objecting however, and replied, "Yes I did. They were going to find out sooner or later."

They sat in friendly silence for a while, each of them with their own thoughts, enjoying each other's company and the few blissful moments of peace between battles. Then Nasuada broke the silence.

"This may not be the best time, but I think I should learn how to touch other people's consciousnesses."

It was Arya's turn to raise an eyebrow as she asked quizzically, "Why?"

Nasuada hesitated, "If Eragon, or anyone for that matter, has another … episode, I would like to know about it at the same time as my spell casters."

Arya didn't seem to see urgency for it, but she shrugged her shoulders anyway and said, "Sure, Eragon or I can teach you. Do you have a preference?"

"Of course not!" said Nasuada a little too enthusiastically, but Arya didn't seem to notice, instead she continued,

"I suggest you get these lessons out of the way before we begin our march to Belatona. That gives us two days. Of course, we will all be rather busy, so it's probably best if you split your lessons between Eragon and me."

Nasuada smiled in agreement. At times Arya's matter-of-fact attitude made life so much simpler, and she was truly grateful to have a friend who didn't ask that many questions. Arya stood up and walked out of the tent just as unobtrusively as she had come in.

Just before she left, she turned around and said, "Your first lesson tomorrow will be in here, before breakfast, with Eragon. I will arrange it. Good night my lady."

"Good night," replied Nasuada, grinning a little bit too much at the prospect of a one on one lesson with Eragon. Luckily, Arya was already gone.


	3. The First Lesson

"Let's take a break," said Nasuada falling into a seat behind her.

"Sure…" replied Eragon choosing to remain standing even though he was feeling equally as defeated.

So far the morning had been a disaster. It had started out well enough with the two of them reviewing mind protection techniques and Nasuada excelling at blocking off her mind. Nasuada had been extremely enthusiastic; a model pupil if ever there was one, up until the moment Eragon had softly touched her conscience. He had treaded very gently, knowing full well that she was not used to having the sanctuary of her mind invaded, but despite his care, the second he made contact, she physically and mentally recoiled. Eragon retreated immediately, but not before he felt waves of panic course through Nasuada's agile mind.

Eragon had never seen his generally cool and composed queen turn such a deep shade of red. She nervously laughed it off however, and insisted they go back to work immediately. Eragon, very confused, did not object. Yet again he reached for her mind and felt her radiating presence, but the second he got close enough to actually see a whole thought, he would be roughly pushed away by an increasingly embarrassed Nasuada. And so it continued for a good ten minutes before standing up started to feel very difficult. This was literally mental warfare, and neither of them was achieving anything. It was then that Nasuada had asked for a break, and Eragon had agreed with a lot more relief than he could express.

They sat in silence for a while, Eragon's thoughts buzzing melancholically with theories as to why Nasuada didn't want him seeing her thoughts. Each was grimmer than the next, and he finally settled on two of the worst possibilities; either Nasuada had something to hide from the Varden, which could indicate she was a traitor, or she just deeply distrusted Eragon. He was busy deciding which situation he would prefer, when Nasuada interrupted his thoughts, "I'm so sorry Eragon. I don't even know what's wrong with me."

"O no! It's okay!" he said in a falsely high pitched voice that indicated he thought otherwise.

"Let's just try it one more time, if it doesn't work, then I don't really need a demonstration, you can just coach me through everything in theory."

Eragon nodded absent-mindedly and made a last full blown attempt to surpass what had become an almost immediate defense response on Nasuada's part. Surprisingly, he met very few, if any, defenses this time. Instead he found her mind chock full of armory statistics, soldiers names, budget calculations and other technical jargon. He knew Nasuada was a much more complex and intelligent woman, yet he could find very few thoughts that would indicate her depth as he sifted through her consciousness, "What's going on?" projected Eragon. Nasuada took a while to answer, and when she did her thought was painstakingly guarded and bare, "Nothing, nothing."

Finally, Eragon decided to ignore the peculiarity and continue with the lesson. He started by giving her a lengthy list of instructions to remember when touching his mind. About half way through the list, he noticed that Nasuada was straining her mind to concentrate; but not necessarily on the lesson. At long last he withdrew from Nasuada's strange and disappointingly barren mind. He almost thought he heard Nasuada breathe a sigh of relief, but he wasn't sure. Instead he gave Nasuada the signal to begin reaching out with her mind, and waited, what he expected would be a long time, for their consciousnesses to make contact. That was not the case. Nasuda proved extremely adept, and found his consciousness within seconds. In her delight, Nasuada released a wave of exuberant thoughts into his mind, but now it was Eragon's turn to recoil. Among the plethora of joyous exclamations, he felt a stronger emotion, an emotion he hadn't felt in a while, but one that he couldn't fail to recognize; it was the pang of new love.

Nasuada, blissfully oblivious that she had let one of her strongest emotions slip into Eragon's consciousness, was somewhat surprised when Eragon suggested they end their lesson there. She didn't complain however, as finishing the lesson ahead of schedule would give her a few minutes to collect her thoughts before her next strategy meeting. Eragon took leave of her quickly, almost stumbling out of the tent, very uncharacteristic of a man with the gracefulness of an elf. Nasuada barely noticed: she was too entranced by her recollections of the lesson.

She began by scolding herself for not realizing earlier that a majority of her thoughts these days revolved around Eragon. He had been at risk of seeing those thoughts at any moment as he inhabited her mind. When she had first thought about the possibility, she had practically jumped out of her skin, and shoved Eragon's mind away simultaneously. From then on, she found herself unable to let down her defenses for fear of a revealing thought reaching him. It wasn't until after they took a little break that Nasuada had finally come up with a way to make sure she kept Eragon away from her stronger emotions. She had felt his surprise as he waded through her mind and found nothing but empty calculations and numbers. But while, she was a little bit worried that Eragon might think her empty headed, she decided it was worth the risk. Nothing could be worse than Eragon finding out how she felt about him!


End file.
